Obesity epidemic. Stuffing yourself to blame?

[saunaman]

Sorry , thought I said "no trolls " , what's happened to "Forum Security" , presumably all the bouncers are now working for G4S or similar?

 

Yes gnvqsos , you are probably right , but who's the "we" ? Does that include you ?

 

Are you happy that some of your taxes are funding sugar manufacturers rather than regular farmers ? And if so , why ?????

[Anna B]

So, did anybody see the programme?

 

A bit long winded, but interesting, (it's the first of 3.)

 

Was anybody shocked by the skinny guy, who was fat on the inside? (An MRI scan revealed he had large fat deposits round all his internal organs.) A lot of people who think they are slim and healthy and eat right have this apparently, so all you skinnies out there don't get too smug.

 

The message was, it's not just wise to avoid fat, but to avoid sugars too, but this is almost impossible because it's prevelant in just about all processed food, savoury as well as sweet products, and in huge amounts. This is maybe not much of a revelation to most people, but the political aspects with food companies lobbying parliament to protect their brand, and giving out missinformation to the public was enlightening.

[Teddybare]

So, did anybody see the programme?

 

A bit long winded, but interesting, (it's the first of 3.)

 

Was anybody shocked by the skinny guy, who was fat on the inside? (An MRI scan revealed he had large fat deposits round all his internal organs.) A lot of people who think they are slim and healthy and eat right have this apparently, so all you skinnies out there don't get too smug.

 

The message was, it's not just wise to avoid fat, but to avoid sugars too, but this is almost impossible because it's prevelant in just about all processed food, savoury as well as sweet products, and in huge amounts. This is maybe not much of a revelation to most people, but the political aspects with food companies lobbying parliament to protect their brand, and giving out missinformation to the public was enlightening.

 

Just started watching it on iplayer. You ruined the ending. Are skinnies now a part of the obesity crisis because they may have large amounts of internal/visceral fat?

 

 

Edit: before watching the program you honestly didn't know that excess sugar led to increased fat stores in humans?

And the solution for avoiding processed food isn't one of cost or inevitability, it's one of increased effort. More effort to make your own food.

[julado]

So obesity is an epidemic...let's look at what's been said on this on here so far. Most people just see the eating issue....thinking that fat people just stuff themselves and are lazy. Some may see the "dysfunctional around food" issue. But is that the total sum of obesity....let actually look at some of the other contributing factors.

 

When we are born we survive by feeding on our mother's milk...and then we are put onto solids.....and cow's milk. What is the purpose of cow's milk...to make relatively small newborn cows into huge great big cows in quite a short period of time. Cows for a long time have been given growth hormones so that there is more yield (and therefore profit) in cows...and those hormones will eventually come through the whole chain. So we can safely presume that the milk we drink can probably contain traces of the hormones given to the cows. People weren't fat centuries ago because there wasn't the greed in making profit from everything we eat, see and touch. When I was growing up there was ONLY ONE type of milk....so WHY I wonder can we now get semi-skimmed and skimmed milk....maybe those men at Ministry of Agriculture and Fish knew something we didn't.

 

And then let's look at social conditioning. We like to please others and feel accepted....its part of how our society works. But...if the things around you point to the fact that society believes fat is bad then what?? Before the mass media hype towards thinness, before any form of media as we know it...fat wasn't the issue it is now. In some eras fat was considered a sign of wealth...and it was fashionable to be fat....how many old master painters depict large well rounded women in their paintings....as far as I know...ONLY Lowry paints stick people. So back to social conditioning and media. Look at what we read, what we see on the television, what we can buy in shops..all promoting thinness and now even an unnatural UNOBTAINABLE thinness.....and there is your problem. We are not, and never will be, the stick thin, airbrushed "perfect" models of humanity as depicted on posters, magazines and films....we don't fit into that at all. Girls as young as 8 see this...and want to be Kate Moss types but to do that means they can't eat...and that is the start of anorexia. Others may feel "Well I will NEVER look like that so I feel bad and now I will eat to comfort how bad I feel". We use food to medicate ourselves. Look at your own lives...what do you use to medicate yourself with....hard day at the office...have a glass of wine, stressed....go for a really long run, followed by two hours in the gym. It's all medication...to cover the inadequacies we feel about ourselves...bought about by outside influences we usually have no control over.

 

So WHO is to blame for obesity...the end user who overeats???? The food producers who put hormones in meat and meat products to make profit....and those who add unhealthy things to food to make profit...those who product poor quality food knowing it will sell cheap to those who have little money, for profit. Is it those in the media who airbrush and photoshop photos to make them appear more attractive whilst being unaware that it makes us normal people feel less attractive. Is it those who only use the token fat person in the visual media they produce thus giving unrealistic balance to the things we are encouraged to watch....when did you last go to the cinema and see a fat person on the screen. When did you look at your favourite soap and see fat people. These so called glimpses of our society omits a big part of the reality. And no-one questions why?? Very rarely do we see disable people either...and at one time you wouldn't have seen black people..or gay people...the media is so limited about what is real in society.

 

And we now live in a world where beauty is perfection...though beauty and glamour are two different things...beauty is God given, glamour can be rubbed off with a Kleenex. Just this week I saw something of women giving their young female children vouchers for their first breast job....and how much surgery - unnecessary surgery - do people go through to try and achieve the impossible.....breasts, legs, noses, faces....all nipped, tucked, enlarged, or lifted.....what is that all about??? Who are they trying to please....and in the end some of them look trout pouty...or even worse like Michael Jackson. I don't get it.

 

So WHO is to blame for the obesity epidemic????? Is it really the end user????

[julado]

And one area I forgot.......so all the fatties in an effort to be thin pop down to weight loss organisation...the ones where you do silly things with food....no carbs with protein, red days, green days, points, syns....all sorts of regimes to rid you of the pounds....and nothing seems to work long term. These companies rid you of the pounds all right...the one's out of your purse. These organisations make a huge profit on the back of the people feeling miserable about not conforming to unrealistic expectations placed on them by society.

 

And the ones that do manage to shift some excess weight are then encouraged to join a gym....mmm...another £30 a month to make sure it doesn't go back on again...but if you miss a couple of sessions then self loathing then sets in and you miss a couple more. How many people take our memberships for a year and ACTUALLY go for the entire year.....more profit making out of those who feel unhappy about their body image. Pfft.

[MrSmith]

What I’ve noticed is that the more excuses society finds to normalize being fat, the more fat people we have in society. The US and Britain are wealthy countries and have the most fat people whilst the poorest countries have the least fat people, so being fat must be more to do with being wealthy than poor. Poor people tend to eat less and walk more; fat people tend eat more and walk less. When we stop spending our money on cars and food we will be less fat.

[Shef_Fitness]

Having watched this, for nearly 50 minutes the only person who made the connection between "not moving around much" was the lady from the drinks company who was saying "you can't blame food/drink for people being fat"

 

Unless this is going to be brought up over the next 2 programmes, not one of the experts has made the connection that people are far more inactive than they used to be.

 

In my previous post I mentioned activities kids did only as recently as the 1980s, and many might say the 1990s until the compensation culture came our way, and also when kids stayed indoors on the PC rather than playing outside.

 

But leaving aside the exercise argument, this afternoon I will be doing the weekly shop and in that shop is likely to be my favourite chocolate roll (who is forcing me to buy the chocolate roll? nobody, its well marketed and so appeals to me and I like the taste - so mr Chocolate Roll bake has done a good job).

 

When I get home I have 2 choices, I can have one slice or I can eat the lot, again this is my choice nobody is standing at the side of me saying "EAT THAT CHOCOLATE ROLL NOW!!!!". As I like choclate at the weekend, its very likely I will eat the whole lot in one go, again, that is my choice. Morrisons has not forced me to eat the chocolate roll.

 

Having eaten the chocolate roll I now have 2 choices, if I sit on my bum for 2 days then I will put on weight and its as simple as that, alternatively I can choose to do some form of activity that will allow me to burn off what I have consumed. I will take the choice to do activity because I don't want to be fat, plus if I do this activity it means I can have another treat and stay slim. SO the fact I can eat what I like comes down to the fact I will do some kind of activity that means eating the additional food at the weekend is not a problem.

 

Now lets say on MOnday I eat a chocolate roll and then sit and watch the TV, Tuesday I eat another chocolate roll and then sit on the computer, Wednesday I eat......you get the pattern (eat a choclate roll and then sit down all night). If I continue to do that for 6 weeks night after night then I will be fat and its as simple as that.

 

Its not Morrisons fault, I like their product, it tastes nice and thats why I buy it. If I choose to gorge night after night and watch the TV, then it is my fault and not the supermarkets. There job is to sell nice products to appeal to people like me. People need to blame themselves rather than the supermarket.

 

With the poverty issue, if you are on £37.50 a week to pay everything (petrol, council tax, mortgage, gas, insurance etc......) as I was back in November 2009/Jan 2010, then I can assure you junk food is not the cheapest option. A bag of rice, pasta, fresh fruit and veg (ie, 4 jacket potatos did cost £1), tine of beans is far cheaper than a BIg Mac from McDonalds, Fish and Chips (£5 per person?) a chinese takeaway (£5 a person?).

 

Contrast that with a bag of rice, some mince meat and other ingrediants such as chopped tomotos, and you can get 3 meals out of that. If you are genuinely poor then junk food is completely out of the question because it costs too much. Also, ready meals if you are in a position where you are on £37.50 a week ready meals are out of the question, you can't afford them.

 

I was in the position of being on £37 a week because I got made redundant from my main job (4 days a week in Nov 2009) and was left on 5 hours work a week on Friday (5 hours at £75 a week). As I had no hours for 4 weeks (christmas period), for 4 weeks I had no money which is when my business started, I needed food. (anyway that explains that)

 

So the argument that junk food is cheap is a non starter. A bag of rice is always going to be cheaper than a takeaway or a ready meal. It comes down to being lazy and not taking responsibility for your own actions

[Darth Vader]

Gluttony isn't an addiction. It may be a medical condition. More like a lack of control.

Can't really compare to cocaine as we can live without it. The same cannot be said about food.

 

I also find your posts naiive and over-simplifying the situation. You can't compare the diets of two people who have such very different consumer and thus eating experiences.

 

Processed crap is making us fatter whilst quality food is becoming out of the reach of the poor. Fat is an economic issue in this country and there is no getting round that.

 

You are correct about not being able to live without food, that's why it's worse than other addictions, like alcohol. Alcoholics on proven programmes are advised to totally abstain from drinking but it's more complicated when you have to eat to survive.

[Shef_Fitness]

I'm going to come back onto the activity issue again.

 

Another prime example, the school run - back in the 1980s we used to walk to and from school, quite often this was the best part of the school day getting to and from school, mixing with your mates, climbing trees/walls etc....these days, kids have to be dropped off directly outside the school by their parents, despite many living on the next street down from the school.

 

Back in the 1980s, there was not the school rush because we walked to school. If you were picked up and dropped off by your mum, then that was the"ultimate form of humilation", being 13years olf and being seen with your parents.

 

You can go on and on and on.

 

The exercise issue, if you go to a fitness club/fitness class and the regulars are fat, then this is not a good sign. Looking at the fitness class in the programme, the majority were flabby so clearly wasting their money.

 

With regards gym memberships, gyms are not public sevices they are businesses with the sole aim of selling memberships. The best people for gyms are the ones that will quit within the first week, these people are put onto the 12 month contracts because the salesperson (whos job it is to sell memberships) will get a picture of the type of person the potential client is (ie, will they stick or will they quit) and the people deemed to quit (which is the majority) will be put onto the 12 month contracts. If gyms operated a system where you only paid when you trained, then either the gym fees would need to be something like £500 a month, or the gym would go out of business - so the non attendees, keep the fees down for the very small minority that do attend.

[Shef_Fitness]

 

quality food is becoming out of the reach of the poor. Fat is an economic issue in this country and there is no getting round that.

 

 

 

 

Utter rubbish